EDITORIALS

Sabotage theory rings hollow

THE death of 12 passengers and injuries sustained by over 100 people, when 13 coaches of the New Delhi-Patna Shramjivi Express train derailed near Khetasarai station in Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh on Sunday morning, is most unfortunate. As the condition of more than 30 passengers is stated to be critical, the toll is likely to increase further. The sabotage theory trotted out by Railway Minister Nitish Kumar and Railway Board Chairman I.I.M.S.Rana, even before the Commissioner of Railway Safety has started enquiring into the causes of the mishap, amounts to prejudging the issue and influencing the probe. The arguments of the Railway Minister in support of the sabotage theory do not seem to be logical and convincing. Mr Nitish Kumar and his team appear to be indulging in a massive cover-up operation to gloss over the failures of the railway officials responsible for the derailment which could have been averted. In the first place, how did the officials of the Operating and Permanent Way departments divert the Shramjivi Express from its usual Lucknow-Sultanpur route to the Jaunpur-Shahganj route when the speed restriction on this branch line was only 45 kilometres per hour? By the officials’ own admission, this track needed repairs and was not meant for use by express trains. Clearly, the derailment of a goods train on the Sultanpur route was absolutely no justification for the authorities to divert the Shramjivi Express to a lesser used branch line, and that too, with a bridge too weak to bear the load of a 24-coach train. Incidentally, the train derailed while crossing the bridge.

If some fish-plates were found loose near the track, how can the Railway Minister call this as conclusive evidence of sabotage? The argument that a light engine had passed through the same track without any problem about an hour before the derailment of the Shramjivi Express, too is not sound. The railway officials themselves aver that fish-plates do get disjointed from the rails under the heavy impact of derailment. Not that the railway officials are not aware of the various technical reasons for derailment and the measures needed to be taken to avoid such a mishap. The Railway Board has, in fact, listed some of them for effective implementation. But the problem is that these guidelines have more or less remained on paper. There seems to be no political and administrative will to follow the rule book. The death of innocent passengers on the rails once again brings to the fore the important question of railway safety. If old bridges and the rolling-stock have outlived their utility, why can the Railway Ministry not replace them? As far back as 1989, the Bridge Rehabilitation Committee of the Railway Board had recommended the replacement of girders from all the bridges having three-metre spans with concrete slabs for stability and protection. This recommendation has been honoured more in breach than in practice. The bridge near Khetasarai station had two spans of three metres each. No doubt, the replacement of old bridges and the rolling-stock involves social and technological costs. But funds should not be a constraint when the issue is one of ensuring the safety of the passengers. In fact, the railways has been collecting a surcharge from passengers for well over a year towards the Safety Renewal Fund. There is need to explore other alternatives too to mobilise resources to improve passenger safety on the rails.

Tough adulteration laws

THE report that about 50 body-builders, spectators and journalists fell ill after consuming contaminated soy milk at the body-building championship meet in Ludhiana should send alarm bells ringing. Of course, the authorities concerned would order a routine enquiry to fix the blame. However, since no lives were lost the punishment, if any, would be token. And that is what is wrong with the official response to the laws dealing with the life-threatening crime of food adulteration. What happened in Ludhiana should serve as a reminder. A random reading of reports on food adulteration would show the nationwide dimensions of the problem. Every day at least 2 lives are lost because of consuming contaminated food or beverage. A lot was said and written about the adulteration of mustard oil leading to dropsy and deaths, mostly among the poorer sections of the people in Delhi. The nationwide uproar did shake up the administration. However, effective measures were never put into place for dealing with problem of food adulteration. Ideally there should be a mechanism for bringing the culprits to justice without much loss of time. Perhaps, a major reason why incidents of food adulteration are not taken seriously has something to do with general attitude of the people towards personal safety and well being. Voluntary organisations should take up the task of combating food adulteration as a challenge. It must be understood that the crime of adulteration is not committed against an individual. Those who contaminate any item of medicine and food, whether solid or liquid, wilfully put at risk the lives of an unknown number of people.

Voluntary organisations should launch an aggressive campaign for a complete review of the existing laws for dealing with food adulteration. Anyone who for the purpose of making profit by putting the lives of unknown and innocent people to risk should be treated as a killer. Dawood Ibrahim is in the business of killing, but he uses violent means for attaining his objective. Food adulterators and the manufacturers of spurious medicines do it quietly. But the end result is the same; death and devastation. Why should there be different parameters for dealing with the criminals who use only different methods for causing hurt to or killing innocent people? What the likes of Dawood do are crimes against humanity. What the food adulterators and spurious medicine dealers do too are heinous crimes. And the punishment for all forms crimes against humanity should be the same. The minimum sentence should be life imprisonment and in the rarest of rare case even death. However, amending the law would not be enough for dealing with food adulteration and related crimes. An effective enforcement mechanism plus special courts for providing speedy justice to the perpetrators of crimes against humanity too are necessary. To begin with the NGOs should start the process of awakening among ordinary citizens against the criminals who manufacturer and sell contaminated food and medicines.

MiG 21s: fatal flaw

WHILE the accident-prone MiG-21s lived up to the sobriquet of “flying coffins”, official circles kept up the chorus that there was nothing wrong with them. And yet the fighter aircraft kept falling out of the skies with alarming regularity. It took two air crashes within one month for the Indian Air Force to ground the fleet for a thorough inspection. After all those denials it has been admitted that there indeed is a design deficiency in the engine of the Mig-21. The flame tube of the R-25 is said to be prone to catching fire and that is feared to be one of the causes that led to the crashes. While it is gratifying that the fault has been identified and is to be rectified, the casualness with which this fact has been accepted is disquieting. Such extreme machines are supposed to be in the zero-defect range. A thorough enquiry is needed to find out if this fault is there only in the planes that India has or are all the planes made in Russia are similarly defective. Either way, the manufacturer must pay compensation to the end user, the IAF in this case. After all, an unacceptably large number of planes have crashed causing the country a loss of thousands of crores of rupees. Even more irredeemable is the loss of the pilots who went down with these so-called coffins. Leave alone the manufacturers of aircraft, even car makers are liable to pay huge damages if they send defective vehicles to the market. And if the fault lies with the maintenance and servicing of these planes, that too must be rectified without any further delay.

It has been revealed that the particular planes had shown problems in the 1980s also. The nation wants to know as to why there has been such fascination for these over-the-hill planes. The curtain of secrecy should not be allowed to hide shortcomings, if any. It is necessary to take a dispassionate look at the whole gamut of fighter plane safety, encompassing everything from their design to maintenance to pilot training. The war horse is past its retirement age and yet continues to be in service. However, the recent accidents have proved that persisting with it will be penny wise and pound foolish. The nation is currently not at war but a war-like situation is very much there. India cannot keep its enemies at bay with a depleted air force and mainstay planes that do not evoke confidence. One hopes that the MiG-21 Bis fleet will be allowed to resume flights only after a genuine test of their airworthiness.

OPINION

The facade of Army deployment
Urgent need to amend laws to make it effective
Harwant Singh

NO other event in recent history has taken up as much newspaper space and chat show time on TV and invited such sustained editorial comment as the riots in Gujarat. These have been variously described as “genocide”, “holocaust”, “ethnic cleansing”, “carnage” and “pogrom”. In fact, even our erudite columnists have been at a loss to find appropriate words to describe the scale and spread of the killings and the horror. Terrible details of young girls, not even in their teens, being gang-raped in public and then burned alive. Pregnant women had their foetuses forcibly taken out and thrown into fire. Who are these abominable people, the perpetrators of these horrible crimes. Surely they cannot be same elements. Willy-nilly the state now harbours a few thousand arsonists, murderers and plunderers, with a fair sprinkling of rapists among them. They have crossed the law’s “Lakshman rekha” by committing grave criminal offences and for years hereafter will stalk the unwary in the shadowy lanes and bylanes of Gujarat.

The state government never sought help from the Army to control the riots. It wanted no such assistance or rather hindrance in its plans to deal with the minority community. Since it was no more an issue of mere law and order, (a state subject) the Central Government (Cabinet Committee on Security) took the unusual step (perhaps under Article 355 of the Constitution) to directly order the deployment of the Army in Gujarat.

Speaking to the media, at the conclusion of the ceremony, granting awards to different battalions for their role for counter-insurgency operations, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) called for the withdrawal of the Army from Gujarat. Continuing, he observed that the, “information I have received is that the Army has done a good job in Gujarat. Now that the situation is under control, it is time to get the forces back....” This was on a day when six people were killed in Gujarat. Arson, looting and murders have since continued. Since by then the Army had been deployed in Gujarat for over seven weeks, the COAS was expected to have more accurate and uptodate information on the state of affairs. Or was the government “using” him to announce normalcy in Gujarat for public consumption. The Defence Minister during his recent visit to the state made a similar pronouncement (confirming normalcy) and that the Army could withdraw, but qualified the statement by saying that the minority community does not wish the Army to leave. For the minority community it is merely a case of a drowning man clutching on to a straw even.

The Army was called out on February 28 and deployed by the late afternoon next day. Thereafter rioting picked up increasing momentum. What exactly was the Army able to achieve in containing, if not combating, this unprecedented situation. During the period of the deployment of the Army the carnage continued relentlessly. The country has the right to know as to what went wrong and how the Army failed to bring the situation under control.

The nation expected the Army Chief (also the Chairman, Chief of Staffs Committee) to visit Gujarat, take stock of the situation and know at first hand the reasons for the failure of the Army to control the situation. He should then have briefed the Cabinet Committee on Security and the Supreme Commander of the armed forces on the developments and deployed means and sought orders to employ methods to control the situation. After all, defence forces are as much responsible for the internal security of the country as its defence against foreign aggression.

The Indian Army is charged with the responsibility of internal security (IS) of the country, in support of the civil administration. To that end military formations and units are earmarked for each province and district through a series of IS schemes, prepared by the Army formations, in conjunction with the respective state/district/civil functionaries. Regular liaison with the concerned civil administration and reconnaissance of towns, likely trouble spots, etc, are carried out. The availability of allied police forces and other resources are normally indicated in these schemes along with details of joint control rooms, communication facilities, the availability of magistrates, etc. That is how it is often possible for the Army to act with dispatch and restore order in a short time. Obviously, this is possible only where there is full cooperation from the civil administration.

The Army’s deployment in aid of the civil administration for controlling public disorder or riots is generally in accordance with the rules framed by the British to meet the requirements of that period. These normally amounted to dispersing mobs, enforcing Section 144 or ensuring the implementation of a curfew order in towns and specific localities, all the time operating in support of the local administration, and in coordination with the police. In every case the presence of a magistrate to authorise the Army detachment (column) to use force to disperse an unruly crowd/mob is essential and written permission (on form IAFD-908) of the magistrate is required. The magistrate could take back the situation (control) from the Army detachment as and when he assessed that he could manage the crowds with the help of the police or the crowd had dispersed. It is on rare occasions where, “public security being seriously endangered”, a commissioned officer can take action at his own responsibility. Even so, he must communicate with a magistrate as soon as possible and take further instructions from him.

Therefore, as per the existing rules, the Army’s role in controlling riots, etc, is extremely restrictive in nature and depends entirely on the cooperation and willingness of the administration to employ the Army to best use. During the British period, because of limited police availability, the Army was called to its help. With the exponential expansion of the state police and central police organisations, this rationale does not exist anymore. Now the Army is called when the situation gets outside the ability and capacity of the police to control. In the earlier period, more often than not, flag marches by Army columns through potential trouble spots were enough to create a sobering effect on miscreants. Consequently, the role and legal powers of the Army, when deployed in aid of the civil authority for law and order tasks, etc, were kept limited. All that has irrevocably changed. Therefore, the need to give magisterial powers to officers and JCOs deployed for riot control duties has become essential. After all, magisterial powers have been given even to tehsildars for routine work.

The Chief Minister initially played a questionable role and then provided the justification (through his action and reaction theory) for the mayhem. Thereafter, the administration and the police not merely turned a blind eye to the happenings but, in fact, most shamelessly abetted and supported the continuing crime; abdicating their constitutional duty. The slogan on the lips of the rampaging mobs has been, “Andar ki bat hai, sarkar hamarey sath hai.” With that kind of a game plan of the administration, the perception of the rioters, the restrictive nature of the Army’s legal powers in the given situation, its deployment became a mere eyewash. Perhaps, the COAS and the Defence Minister, may the nation, need to address this issue.

In more recent times the Indian scene has undergone a paradigm change. Riots have become more ugly, are often led by local political leaders, the administration and the police provides tacit support, the scale of violence has reached new heights and cruelty to women and children has acquired new dimensions. Economic impoverishment of the targeted community is attempted by burning and looting its property and business establishments. Mobs are more aggressive and prone to taking to violence at the slightest provocation. The police and the administration, in many cases, have been dangerously communalised and their leadership has passed into the hands of weaklings. For others the fear of a mere posting is enough to get them fall in line.

Therefore, deploying the Army, where the police and the magistracy abdicate their constitutional responsibility and align themselves with rioters, where the political rulers shamelessly pursue “vote bank” politics, where the Governor is dyed in the same hue and the Central Government unwilling to act, the deployment of the Army is a mere “khana poori”. This has been apparent in the case of Gujarat now and Delhi in 1984. Witnessing such state of affairs, the mayhem, the behaviour of the administration, the police and politicians, the troops could develop contempt for the civil authority. It tends to shake confidence in the very system and consequently impact on the willingness to sacrifice their lives to defend that system. A soldier gets worried that given the ease with which the law and order machinery cracks up or bends, whether his own family, from whom he remains separated for long periods, is safe.

Gujarat is variously being seen as a laboratory, the forerunner to an experiment to be replicated elsewhere, nay eventually everywhere. It is religious bigotry at present, but the next set of troubles may in addition be related to caste or even class issues. This abdication of governance and unwillingness to enforce the rule of law by the government of the day, to serve its narrow political purpose, is nothing short of playing with fire; with blinkers on. Pluralism has been fundamental to Indian unity. Indian society has survived for thousands of years because of its pluralism and tolerance of different faiths and creeds. Forsaking this ethos may have serious consequences for the country.

This brings us to the central issue of this piece: the role of the Army in a situation where the civil administration abdicates its primary responsibility of enforcing the rule of law and, in fact, sides with the rioters, and the central government opts to look the other way. The founding fathers, while framing the Constitution, never visualised such a possibility.

The Army is the ultimate weapon to protect the country and its people; from external aggression and, equally from internal strife. We must not blunt it by adhering to restrictive laws governing its deployment in riotous situations.

The writer, a retired Lieut-General, is a former Deputy Chief of Army Staff.

MIDDLE

NIPs and VIPs
I. M. Soni

ONCE the late Mrs Indira Gandhi ordered a cutback in various kinds of cars for government officials. It seemed that she had struck at the very heart of status symbolism in India. She did not succeed. No one can, I think.

In the thrice-blighted capital, Chandigarh, the art of one-upmanship often revolves around many things but of late it is the car which has been dominating the scene.

Even the novice can tell that a government official is really on the “rise” the day he goes down the ramp to the garage of the building where he works. That’s VIP parking place. If the car is parked in the open, he is only an NIP — not an important person.

Chandigarh’s multitude of status symbols could be loosely lumped under the terms carmanship. This is extended to many accessories intimately linked with the car.

One-upmanship often revolves around the car’s length, cost and colour. The more expensive it is, the more admirers it has. It is the focus of attention like the new bride.

Of late, the focus has been on the digits on the number plate. The highest premium is on the single or two digits. One gentleman (may his ego swell no more) coughed out a lakh or two of rupees to decorate the number plate with a coveted digit. The administration laughed its way to the bank.

By the way, who is bothered or impressed by the number on the plate? Some traffic constable? I wonder. But that does not mean that the gentleman is not entitled to his vanity. He is as I am to my thinking.

This is not the only instance of human vanity getting the better of sound values. Some proudly exhibit their designation on the number plate. The office travels with them wherever they go, they think.

The consciousness of the official status clings to them. One shudders to think what happens to their ego when they have to demit office on attaining the age of superannuation.

Some officials are enamoured of their name. The string of alphabets thus decorates the car’s number plate.

When the car comes to dominate, can the horn be far behind? Never mind if it is an instrument of noise pollution, hence a nuisance.

For the car owner, it too is a status symbol. Hence, it must be had in its weird avatars. It may bleat, stab the peaceful air with shrieks or come sounding like a siren in war-time. It can even “bark” and “bray”. It can do anything the owner wants it, even honk repeatedly to tease a bevy of pretty girls sauntering on the university campus roads.

All this is fine so long as it manages to tell the pests on the pavement that it is either a VIP shooting through the air or an NIP desperately trying to be noticed as a VIP.

REALPOLITIK

Politics & economics of reform
P. Raman

OF late, the national discourse on the nature of economic reform has undergone qualitative changes. The left and left intellectuals, the much maligned trade unions and the swadeshis were traditionally singled out as obstructors of reform. All others, including the inheritors of the Nehruvian legacy, had accepted the reform mantra as the ultimate route to economic moksha. If various measures under reform programme had got bogged down in the past, it has been attributed to a combination of adverse factors.

Walk along the Capital’s corridors of power. You will feel the difference. Politicians no more talk of the inviolability of the new “generations” of reform. Gone are the days when even in the midst of a parliamentary deadlock the ruling party and the Opposition vie with each other to let the reform business pass. Now the opposition MPs are visibly glad at the BJP’s repeated election defeats due to the economic backlash. For the latter, Yashwant Sinha is only a symbol of a destructive cause.

Anyone could scent the BJP ranks’ ire even before the Goa resolution. They had held that in democracy rigorous measures affecting the common man should be enforced with consent. Political parties cannot ignore the voters’ sentiments. But after Goa, the BJP leaders have begun rationalising their objections with a mix of politics and economics. The MPs warn that the ultimate test of an economic measure is whether it benefits the common man and middle classes. By arguing that policies which leave out a majority of the people from their very scope would not succeed in democracy, a big section of them seem to seek a rethink on the whole issue.

Right at the BJP office in Parliament House, a leader agitatedly decried the exit policy. In the USA, where he has been briefly, there existed a fairly effective security net for the jobless. In developed countries if one loses job he or she could try for an alternative elsewhere. It may be better or worse but one can expect to get one. In a situation where a large number of people are ousted from jobs and new avenues are hard to come by, such policies naturally lead to fierce backlash. However, the BJP MPs’ outbursts are not exactly akin to the now silenced Swadeshi Jagran Manch.

The SJM views the situation from an ideological and nationalistic perspective. Its aim is to build a strong domestic sector to take on the MNCs. For the new tribe of reform opponents in the BJP, it is purely practical politics. They find it impossible to go against the anti-reform wind in their constituencies. Some of them verily admit that at the fag end of the campaign in recent elections, they themselves had condemned the adverse effects of reform on the common man. Though it was found effective, it was not enough to change the voters’ mood.

When the SJM had launched campaigns against the globalisation and privatisation, Vajpayee could effortlessly send Gurumurthys, Datopant Thengdis and Govindacharyas into oblivion. However, after the polls he obligingly yielded to the strong waves of protests from the BJP grassroots. Efforts by the reformists to convince the MPs about the virtues of reform measures seem to evoke little response. Some of them told the reformers that facing up to the voters in backward areas is different from addressing the cosy chamber seminars.

Despite brave words, there is a visible slowdown in the pace of the economic reform process after the Goa session. Caution is the watchword when it comes to unpopular measures. Pro-reform writers may still argue that the reform process is safe, and from now on no one — even the Left governments — could push it back. To an extent, this is true. Global commitments — before consulting Indian Parliament — have to be honoured, and like others we too have to compete in the new globalised regime under the rules of game set by them. There cannot be a turning back on this.

The renewed resistance, mainly from the grassroots workers of the ruling party, is to the manner in which the ‘West-dictated’ rules are enforced. The problem has been worsened by the dogmatic approach — without any regard to the ground realities at home. Opening up, competition and leaving things to be decided by market forces are all lofty ideals. But members coming from the vast backward tracks have to answer unpleasant querries like how long should they wait for the promised land. The people’s representatives have no ready answer as to when the market forces will come and rescue the land where no infrastructure ever existed.

Those in the opposition always try to incite the deprived people by blaming the ruling party for their underdevelopment. Every party does it. Such competitive condemnation hardens the anti-reform feelings in the backward regions and among deprived groups. Euphoria and initial enthusiasm worked well for a few years. The early market surge followed the high demands for middle class consumer goods and the rise in industrial output had been enough to give new hopes even to the most hopeless. Once the surge in demand got levelled up and industrial production began to slump, the politician was left to face up to the harsh truth.

We are fast reaching a stage when things are slipping out of every one’s hands. For a long time, the vote-seeking politician was under a carefully built notion that economic issues can never sway people of the underdeveloped world. According to this myth, those who have been used to scarcity and death for centuries, would meekly suffer the present deprivation. Possibly, the communication explosion has made them aware of their plight as compared to the rosy picture of luxurious life beamed by TV ads. If the rich consumer is the king in market, the hopeless voter can be an emperor at the polling booth.

It has been fashionable to blame the politician for the failure of reform. Right from the IMF to the domestic pro-reform writers, the advice is directed at the politician. They presume that politicians shape up the people’s mind, and the hurdles are due to politicisation of reform. They hardly acknowledge the repeatedly proven wisdom of the illiterate Indian voters.

A central minister has even advocated the formation of a ‘united front’ of all pro-reform Chief Ministers. But the minister overlooked all the hard work put in by such Chief Ministers to give them a populist image. It has been such delicate balancing acts, rather than the harsh reform measures, that had sustained those like Chandrababu Naidu and Digvijay Singh. Instead of targeting politicians, the reform pedlars should have used their expertise to convince the people at large about the benefits of reform.

The biggest enemy of the economic reform is the reform itself. The biggest hurdle in its way is being created by its own overenthusiastic propagandists. Lakhs were thrown out of job when the composition of the economic activity shifted from manufacturing to services. This, along with the rising competition from imports, have resulted in minus growth rate in employment during the reform decade. Even before rolling back Rs 3000 crore tax proposals, it was evident that infrastructure projects will further suffer. This will aggravate the job situation. Unlike the armchair advisers, politicians have to be sensitive to the ground realities back in their constituency.

TRENDS & POINTERS

School helps cut leukaemia risk 

CHILDREN'S immune systems as well as their minds are being stimulated at nursery schools which could help to reduce their risk of developing leukaemia, researchers have said.

A study by scientists in California found that children who started nursery school or day care early in life and mixed with a large number of children were less likely to suffer from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), the most common childhood cancer in developed countries.

“Our study contributes to the idea that isolation from common infections can increase the risk of childhood leukaemia,” said Prof Patricia Buffler of the University of California, Berkeley.

Buffler and scientists who conducted the Northern California childhood leukaemia study suspect that exposure to a variety of infections at an early age increases the ability of the immune system to cope with diseases.

They believe if children are not in contact with other youngsters, their immune system does not develop fully and may produce cancerous cells in response to infections.

“As well as attending nursery there are many ways in which the immune system can receive developmental stimulation, such as vaccination and exposure to siblings and friends,” Buffler added. Reuters

 Low sex drive in troops?

DENYING media reports on the prevalence of low sex drive among frontline Indian troops after their posting in high altitudes, the Army has clarified that so far no study has indicated enhanced risk for impotence after a mountainous posting.

Many times soldiers have a tendency to attribute their impotency disorder to the history of their tenure in high altitudes, Col P. Madhusoodanan, HOD and senior advisory (surgery and urology), Army Hospital Research and Referral, said.

Troops do face solitude due to extreme climate at high altitudes. But this problem is faced even by those posted in other border areas, he said.

Soldiers are likely to face the problem of pulmonary oedema — difficulty in breathing — at high altitudes, but they are first trained to live in such conditions before being sent there, he said. PTI

Fair sex facing harassment

DESPITE the Supreme Court directing stringent measures to check sexual harassment of working women, about 21.62 per cent women officers in India feel the fair sex was facing the problem.

This stark reality was highlighted in a study conducted by the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration on “Increasing Awareness for Change — A Survey of Gender and the Civil Services”.

About 48 women officers, constituting 21.62 per cent of the female officers surveyed, felt that sexual harassment was a problem while 174 women, or 78.38 per cent, said they have not faced any such discrimination.

Among men, only 29 officers, who were 6.70 per cent, accepted it being a problem. For 404 of them it was not a problem at all. UNI

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

A Dialogue

Yaksha:
What makes a man proficient in learning? What makes him intelligent and saves him from danger? How does he attain the highest?

Yudhishthira:
Association with the great in wisdom makes a man learned; service to elders makes him intelligent; courage saves a man in danger; and by austerity he attains the highest.

Yaksha:
What is nobler than the earth which sustains us?

What is higher than the sky?

What is faster than wind?

What is in greater plenty than even the grass?

Yudhishthira:
The mother who brings up her child with all care is a nobler sustainer than the earth; The father is higher than the sky; Mind is speedier than the wind; and worries are more in abundance than even grass.

Yaksha: 
What befriends a traveller?

Who is a friend to one staying at home?

Yudhishthira:  
Learning is the friend of a traveller.

A wife is a friend to him who stays at home.

Yaksha:
What is the sole means of dharma, of fame, of happiness and of heaven?

Yudhishthira:
Dexterity is the sole means of dharma,

charity of fame.

Good conduct leads to happiness

and by truth alone one attains heaven.

Yaksha:
What is the soul of man?

Yudhishthira:
A son is the soul of man.

— The Mahabharata, Aranya Parvan, chapters 267-68